Thursday, 28 April 2011

Comics@SciFiLondon Schedule Released

Comics @ Sci-Fi London takes place this weekend (30th April - 1st May) - a two day festival about the best of British Comics from the last 30 years in a lovely new space - The Blue Room - at BFI Southbank, London. Here's a full run-down of the weekend's events.

This is not a ticketed event, however there will be a sign up sheet on the door on both days, if you would like to reserve a seat for individual panels.

Day One: Saturday 30th April
The Blue Room, 1st Floor, BFI Southbank, Waterloo, London
Doors open at 10am – Small press creators will be around to sell their work and meet visitors.

11am – SF comics for kids
Paul Collicutt (Robot City Adventures), Phillipa Rice (My Cardboard Life), Alex Milway (The Mythical 9th Division) and Eddie Robson (Doctor Who Adventures) discuss creating Science-Fiction and Fantasy comics for kids and having interested children in the format, how to keep their love of comics going. Followed by a children’s workshop run by Paul Collicutt.

Chair : Chris Johnson (CBBC)

12.30pm – City of Abacus
A panel discussion with four of the creators of the serialised graphic novel City of Abacus including writers V.V. Brown and David Allain and artists Lee O’Connor and John Spelling, who drew issues two and three respectively, looking at the intriguing mix of dystopian SF and fantasy that the comic presents. Followed by a City of Abacus signing

3.30pm – The work of Warren Ellis
Editor Matt Jones (principal, BERG design who commission Ellis’ new comic SVK) and writer Matthew Sheret (Solipsistic Pop), whose love of comics started with Warren’s work, discuss the work of comic book / multimedia writer Warren Ellis who has penned some of the most influencial SF comics of the last 20 years.
Followed by 10 minute preview screening of new documentary, Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts.

11am – Small Press to Mainstream
Al Davison and Tony Lee (IDW Doctor Who comic), Tom Humberstone (Solipsistic Pop) and David Hine (Batman) talk about how working in small press comics has lead to work for mainstream publishers, but also provided a home to publish alternative titles throughout their careers so far. Followed by ‘Drop in and draw’ activities for first time artists wanting encouragement in creating comics, run by Tom Humberstone.

2pm - Comics and Moving Pictures
Comics have been both the basis of and influenced the look of much TV and film over the past few years and so creators Martin Fisher (Battle Among the Stars), Huw J. Davies (Freeman, Garth), Edward Ross (Filmish, Parasites!) and Roger Mason (2000AD, The Mice) will be talking about how their interest in both fields has led to cross-pollination in their work and how they see this influencing both media as a whole.

Chair: Rich Johnson (Bleeding Cool)

3.30pm – Horror and noir
A panel looking at the crossover between two popular genres with guests Denise Mina, graphic novelist Hannah Berry who will be previewing her new book Adamtime and David Hine who has written horror themed comics throughout his career from Strange Embrace to Spawn.

The site downthetubes.net, which began publishing in 1999, is edited by John Freeman whose credits include editor of Doctor Who Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, Star Wars Magazine, and Marvel UK titles such as Overkill, Death's Head II, Warheads and others. He's currently editor of the upcoming Strip Magazine for Print Media Productions.

About the Writers:

• Matthew Badham has written features for Judge Dredd: The Megazine, the Forbidden Planet International blog and more

• Jeremy Briggs contributes news, reviews, interviews and historical articles on British comics. He is a guest writer on Steve Holland's UK comics history blog, Bear Alley, and has written for Comics International, TV Zone, Spaceship Away and Omnivistascope.

• David Hailwood has written comic strips for various publications, including TOXIC, Accent UK, Bulletproof and Futurequake. He also writes comedy material for TV, and regularly contributes to the Temple APA (a showcase for UK comic writers and artists).

• Andy Luke is a writer who draws: he's s created the eponymous Andy Luke's Comic Book, Gran, Absence: a comic about epilepsy, Hold the Phones, It's Alex Jones, and graphic novel, The Watch Thief. He's written about comics too, mainly for Bugpowder.com, and has been involved with the Caption comics festival in Oxford. He currently lives in Belfast with a large box of pasta and a 7ft tall cigarette, and can be found online at http://andy-luke.com and http://awriterwhodraws.com

• Ian Wheeler is a freelance writer who also edited the highly-acclaimed British comics fanzine Eagle Flies Again.